


Work-Life Balance

by Polomonkey



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Boss/Employee Relationship, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26700178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/pseuds/Polomonkey
Summary: Merlin's sick to death of being a cog in the workplace machine. Telling his hot boss where to shove it might not be the best solution however...
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 325





	Work-Life Balance

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on tumblr literally years ago and never uploaded it here! It was inspired by a post by the brilliant [deheerkonijn](https://deheerkonijn.tumblr.com/) who also drew a [lovely piece of art](https://thepolomonkey.tumblr.com/post/131890257252/deheerkonijn-thepolomonkey-herrhasen-au#notes) for it after!

When Merlin graduated uni, he had it all figured out. Perfect his graphic design portfolio, land himself a few freelance jobs, build up a reputation, and then get taken on at a design firm. He was ready to work hard, ready to put the graft in, knowing it might take a while but he’d get where he needed to be eventually.

That was five years ago now. Freelance jobs were non-existent, his portfolio was out of date, and no design firm would even look at his CV. He’d moved to London six months ago to take one last shot at his dream, and found the only job he could get was admin assistant for a consultancy firm in the City.

It wasn’t all bad. There was a fruit delivery on Mondays and a drinks trolley on Fridays and Elena in Finance sent him silly pictures and YouTube videos sometimes. But it was boring, and it was depressing, and he hated locking himself away from the sun in a grey cubicle for eight hours a day.

Plus, there were just little annoyances he’d never anticipated about office life. The lifts always breaking down. The meetings about having more efficient meetings. The endless passive aggressive notices about people leaving plates in the sink, or teabags in the recycling.

He’d thought the emails about the sweets people had brought for the office were nice at first, until he realised it was just an excuse for people to brag about where they’d been on their holidays. The one-upping was getting more ridiculous by the day. After Sophia had brought back “authentic Breton biscuits” from France, Gilli had shown up the next day with “honey cakes made at my uncle’s hive in Devon”, and Vivian had countered that next week with “handmade sugar spindles from a small village in Bali”. Merlin half expected the next email to be someone bringing back truffles harvested from Mount Doom or something.

Most of all, he hated the fact that he cared about all this rubbish. He’d never wanted to be the type of person who got so annoyed by petty things, who resented the people around them, who dedicated half their life to complaining about their morning commute. But he could feel it happening to him; slowly, inexorably. He was becoming a cog in the machine, and the graphic design dream seemed further away with every passing day.

To compound matters, his line manager Arthur was terribly good looking and skewed horrendously hot and cold. Some days he’d be laughing and joking with Merlin in the kitchen, other times he’d sweep past without so much as a word. Merlin was sure sometimes that Arthur was flirting with him; other days it felt like Arthur barely tolerated him. On those days Cedric usually ended up directing Merlin’s workflow, wringing out every last ounce of power that the title of Assistant Office Manager afforded him. And he didn’t like Merlin, not at all. He assigned all the drudge work to him, all the filing and the photocopying and the envelope stuffing. And he pushed as much of his own work onto Merlin as he could possibly get away with.

So when Arthur popped his head in one day and asked for someone to compile a report on the conversion rates for the Burton campaign, Merlin was unsurprised to hear Cedric volunteer him immediately. Arthur had made a bit of a fuss about how important it was, told Merlin to have it by next Monday, and then disappeared again.

The report was not simple. But Cedric was less than no help so Merlin struggled through it alone, working on it at the end of the day when Cedric had finally slimed off home and couldn’t throw any more menial tasks his way. It was tedious and it was tiring and Merlin hated it, but it had to be done. He was almost giddy on Monday morning when he finally emailed it off to Arthur. He didn’t expect a reply half an hour later asking him to come in “for a chat”, but he couldn’t help but hope it might be congratulations on a job well done.

He passed Uther on the way in, who glanced at him briefly.

“Hello Martin.”

“It’s Merlin,” he said quickly.

“Yes, Mervin, very good,” Uther said, already halfway down the corridor. Merlin sighed and knocked on Arthur’s door.

“Just a quick one Merlin, about the Burton report.”

It was probably too much to expect for a bit of praise but Merlin hoped for some anyway. He had stayed late every night last week to get it done, and a bit of positive feedback might ease the sting of completely missing the Great British Bake Off finale.

“Yes?”

“Don’t know if anyone slung you a copy of the brand guidelines, but you’ll need to redo most of the programme notes.”

Merlin blinked.

“Brand guidelines?”

Arthur was barely looking at him, eyes on his computer screen. He was clearly on the chilly side of the hot/cold divide today.

“Yeah, you’ve been using the set data for 2015 but we’ve switched to next year’s now. So it needs redoing. You might just wanna scrap the whole thing and start again actually, make sure it’s fully brand compliant.”

“I…”

Merlin genuinely couldn’t speak for a moment.

“But the meeting’s this afternoon,” he stammered at last. “I won’t be able to redo it before then.”

“Oh, don’t worry about the meeting. I only need to present the figures on page 2 for that,” Arthur said airily, scrolling through his phone.

Merlin felt a familiar pressure building up in his chest; like when someone pushed in front of him to take the last spot on the train and all he could do was stand there and watch it leave.

“You said it had to be done for today. I pushed back all my other projects,” he said distinctly, determined not to let his voice quaver.

“Did I? Huh,” Arthur said, tapping out a text message. “No, it really wasn’t that important. I won’t really need it till the next quarter anyway.”

Then he finally looked up, and gave Merlin a slight smirk.

“You weren’t worried about it, were you?”

Merlin tried to remember what the nice HR lady said about resilience. About professionalism in the workplace and about de-escalating stressful situations. About the importance of taking a few deep breaths when you felt overwhelmed.

Merlin breathed in and out: slowly, calmly.

“Why don’t you take your report and shove it up your arse?”

_Oh, God. Oh shit. Oh no, oh no, oh no._

There was a long horrified pause, in which Arthur’s eyes got wider and wider, like some kind of cartoon character. Merlin would have laughed, only he was concentrating too hard on not throwing up everywhere. The silence stretched on for what felt like five hundred years, and then Arthur finally opened his mouth.

Merlin bolted.

He couldn’t go back to his desk and let Arthur find him there, fire him in front of all those people. But his stuff was there; he couldn’t just walk out of the building and never return.

Panicked with indecision, Merlin ducked inside the first door he could see, which happened to be the stationery cupboard. He shut the door behind him and then promptly dropped to his knees in some sort of delayed nervous reaction.

Merlin didn’t do things like this. He might have been the type to keep up a sarcastic running commentary in his head about the foolishness around him, but he never said it out loud. He just wasn’t a confrontational person in that way, but clearly the little man in charge of his brain was drunk at the wheel today.

And now he’d said that to Arthur and oh God, he was going to be fired. And he might have disliked this job but he needed it, he barely had the money for this month’s rent in his account, what was he going to do? They wouldn’t give him a reference, not after this. He wouldn’t be able to find anyone to take him on. He’d have to move back home to his mum, and everyone would know what a failure he was, how he couldn’t even last six months in London and…

He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth to stop himself from screaming, or worse, crying. Then the door swung open, and it was Arthur of course, because the universe hated Merlin today.

He got to his feet, a lump in his throat, and held up a hand before Arthur could even speak.

“I’m going, I’m going. Just… just needed a minute.”

“Going?” Arthur said, peering at Merlin.

“Yes, going, leaving, I’ll clear out my desk, I’ll-”

Embarrassingly, he couldn’t swallow the lump this time, thinking of everyone watching as he packed up his stuff.

“Merlin.”

Arthur’s voice was surprisingly gentle, and even more surprising was the way he reached out to touch Merlin’s arm.

“You’re not fired.”

“I’m not?” Merlin said thickly.

“No,” said Arthur. “Don’t get me wrong, you were insanely unprofessional but… I was kind of being unprofessional too. I shouldn’t have been on my phone; my dad’s always telling me off for that. And I shouldn’t have given you the wrong deadline for the report. That was bad management and I apologise.”

Merlin gaped a little. Arthur Pendragon didn’t apologise to anyone, and especially not lowly office drones like him. But Arthur seemed entirely sincere.

Clearly Merlin’s disbelief was showing on his face because Arthur said:

“Don’t look so shocked, I’m a very gracious person.”

“I… I’m sorry too. For…”

“For telling me to shove it up my arse?” Arthur replied, with a wicked grin. “It was actually kind of hilarious. Definitely the first time anyone’s said that to me. Well, outside the bedroom anyway.”

Merlin wondered if the little man in Arthur’s head was drunk at the wheel too, because surely his line manager did not just make a sex joke.

It seemed to catch up with Arthur at the same time because he groaned.

“Oh God. Forget I said that. Talk about unprofessional.”

“Don’t think I can forget that, actually.”

“I’ll let you off the report and we’ll call it even?”

“Alright,” Merlin said, and then decided to give his own little man free rein one last time. “If you buy me a drink tonight as well.”

There was a pause almost as long as the one in Arthur’s office, only Merlin didn’t feel like throwing up this time. He could tell he was onto something from the way Arthur was looking at him.

“Where did that come from?” Arthur said at last, and he sounded a bit dazed.

“Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure you’ve been flirting with me. At least on the days you’re not ignoring me,” Merlin said boldly, taking a step towards him.

“I’m not supposed to date people I manage,” Arthur said weakly.

“So that explains why you’re all smiles one day and barely speak to me the next.”

Arthur had the grace to look guilty.

“I’m sorry about that. I… just… Look, management really wouldn’t approve.”

“I won’t cc your dad in on the announcement email then,” Merlin said easily.

Arthur appeared to be considering. Then a small smile crossed his face.

“Please don’t talk about my dad right now.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to do this.”

Without warning Arthur backed Merlin into the wall and leant in to kiss him. But he stopped mere millimetres from Merlin’s lips, as though asking for permission.

Merlin surged forward, pressing their lips together. He bumped against the cupboard in his haste but the accompanying shower of post-it notes only made the kiss better. Arthur laughed a little against his mouth, and the sound sent a warm shiver down his spine. This was something he could really get used to.

Merlin spent that night at Arthur’s. The next day at work he laughed at all of Cedric’s jokes, complimented George on the Norwegian salt liquorice he brought in, and volunteered to take the minutes at the next company meeting. Then he brought Arthur lunch in his office and managed to get a sneaky blowjob before his afternoon meeting.

He might finally have got the hang of this work-life balance thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
